Update: Winner Announced

Congratulations to Dianna Otterstad of Lewisville, TX who won a copy of Nightshade in the drawing.

Today I’m happy to welcome author Susan Wittig Albert. As I read her latest China Bayles’ mystery, Nightshade, I was thrilled to discover that several scenes are set quite near Zanthan Gardens and in other Austin locales quite familiar to me. Now I’m expecting to see China around every corner. I did have the pleasure of meeting Susan during last weekend’s Spring Fling–which just goes to show, that in the world of gardening and mysteries, you never know what might happen next. — mss

In Search of China’s Father: A Book-Bridging Story

Many thanks to MSS for hosting me today at Zanthan Gardens. This blog tour celebrates the launch of Nightshade, the latest China Bayles mystery. For those of you who haven’t met her, China is a former criminal defense attorney who left the rat race and moved to Pecan Springs TX, a small town at the eastern edge of the Hill Country, halfway between Austin and San Antonio. There, she owns an herb shop and tends her gardens, when she isn’t solving mysteries. One of the mysteries she’s compelled to solve arises out of her own past, out of her father’s death, some sixteen years ago.

(Spoiler alert: this post contains some information that is part of the mystery—but only some. There’s still plenty of mystery left for you to solve.)

China’s Past, China’s Present

Real people have a past—that’s one of the things that make them so interesting. Writers know that their fictional characters need a past, as well: to give them depth and substantiality, to make their present actions understandable, and to hold the reader’s interest. As a series writer (mysteries are usually written in series), I’ve loved having the opportunity to let my characters’ pasts come to light gradually—not all at once, and not all in one book, but bit by bit, as their present situation summons up the memories of the past.

China Bayles tells us a bit about her past in almost every book. In Thyme of Death, we learn that her father, Robert Bayles, a successful Houston lawyer, influenced her decision to go to law school and become an attorney. She did it to “get his attention,” she says, “to please him.” But nothing China did could ever please Bayles, a cold, remote man who had little time for his daughter or his alcoholic wife.

A bit of my own personal history here: China’s relationship with her father was modeled on my own troubled relationship with my father, a stern, distant man who inspired me alternately with adoration, as a girl, and fear, as a teen and as his alcoholism grew worse. I struggled with my feelings for him for years, even after he died. Writing about China’s relationship with her father has helped me see mine more clearly.

As the series moves along, we begin to understand that China’s inability to trust men arises in part from her unhappy, untrusting relationship with her father. In Bleeding Hearts, more of the backstory emerges. We find out that when China was in her teens, she had a weekend and summer job in Bayles’ law office, where she met the partners, her father’s secretary, Laura Danforth, and Danforth’s son Buddy. We learn how her father died, in a fiery car crash sixteen years before the present. And we discover that Laura Danforth was her father’s mistress, and Buddy—now a practicing attorney, introduced by his real name, Miles—is her father’s son. This back story plays out as one of the mysteries of the book, as China meets Buddy. At the end of the book, Miles gives her a batch of letters Robert Bayles wrote to his mother, letters that cast China’s father in an entirely new light.

In Spanish Dagger, more details of China’s father’s story emerge. We discover that Laura Danforth did not believe that the car crash that killed Bob Bayles was accidental, and that she was still trying to solve the mystery when she died. Miles, her son, is carrying on that search and wants to involve China, who is not at all anxious to get dragged into a past that she finds altogether unpleasant. But in Nightshade, China has to get involved, when the search for the facts behind her father’s death comes home to haunt her. What happens in this mystery is going to change China’s life completely, in ways she can’t begin to understand—not yet.

In Search of China’s Father: A Book-Bridging Story

The story of China’s father was so complex that I didn’t want to try to tell it and solve its mysteries all in one book. Instead, I chose to develop it across three books: a trilogy within the series. The story is introduced as a subplot in Bleeding Hearts, when China meets her half-brother and learns about her father’s illicit affair with Laura Danforth. It continues and is expanded (but is still a subplot) in Spanish Dagger, as China finds out more details about Danforth’s investigation into Robert Bayles’ death. It becomes the central plot in Nightshade, where all the mysteries are finally resolved.

I love writing mysteries because they’re written in a series and a series offers so many possibilities for character development and extended story-telling. I could never have told the whole story of China’s relationship with her father and her discovery of the truth behind his death in a single book. It would have been far too complicated, and important parts of it could not have been developed.

I realize that I’m taking a chance doing this. Some readers may be irritated at not having every loose end tied up in the final chapter, as is usually done in a mystery. And a reader who begins the series with the second or third book in the trilogy may have some catching-up to do. But the story itself was too rich to compress and too important to ignore. So here it is, complete at last—that is, as much as a story can be completed. As I said, what happens in Nightshade is going to alter China’s life in some very important ways. How? Well, gosh. We’ll just have to wait for the next book or two, I guess.

Susan’s Blog Tour

Thanks again to Zanthan Gardens for hosting me today. And thanks to all the readers who are following this blog tour through cyberspace. If you have questions or thoughts to share, post a comment. I’ll be around all day, and tomorrow and the next, to reply to your comments. — Susan